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The Palestinian Authority (PA) has now moved a step closer to making good on its threat to go to the International

Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour

Criminal Court (ICC) and bring charges against Israel. There is little doubt that this was a move Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried desperately to avoid. In the end, he was forced to do it by a combination of U.S.-Israeli rejectionism, Palestinian desperation to do something to try to end Israel’s occupation, and his own many missteps.

Abbas signed on to 18 international agreements after the quixotic attempt to pass a resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) predictably failed. Among them was the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC and took formal effect in 2002. This is the step that the U.S. and Israel have warned Abbas against most strongly. Among all the “unilateral steps” the Palestinians could take (which, one should note, is no more “unilateral” than any number of actions taken by Israel on a routine basis), this is the one Israel worries about most. Read more at LobeLog

The Anti-Defamation League put out an exhaustive poll to find out how much anti-Semitism there is in the world. The poll is fatally flawed, with questions that often don’t describe anti-Semitism but a broader fear of the other, a weak standard for passing the anti-Semitism bar and other issues. Yet, with all of that, it found that 26% of the world holds some of what they defined as “anti-Semitic views.” That is, actually, a remarkably low number, but the ADL and Israel sounded the alarm bells. I explore this further in Souciant this week.

The United States may be easing up its customary pressure on Europe to go along with it in its blanket protection of Israel no matter how far Israel pushes the envelope. Early indications are that Europe just doesn’t need the pressure, they’re not going to pressure Israel anyway, despite the recent arrogant comments by both Bibi Netanyahu and Yvet Lieberman. But in the long term, maybe there’s a little more hope down the European road than the US one. I explore this in this week’s piece at Souciant.

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